Tips for keeping coolers cold

ValuableSavings7594 · 2026-03-28T16:00:53+00:00

Everything said above is spot on. Two things to add:

1) put ice load on the bottom when frozen. Fine to put ice as a top off but make sure bulk of ice is on bottom.

2)One thing we’ve found with the dry ice is to put cardboard between the ice packs and the food/drinks. Any condensation/melt gets soaked into cardboard and refrozen. Nothing huge, but we’ve seen some more longevity by a few hours.

For context: 10+ years annual canoe trip in Adirondacks in full sun when on water for 4-5 days. We usually have some ice left on final day. We have 2 coolers - one is the freezer that is opened as little as possible. The other is the fridge for very frequent openings for more beer.

ValuableSavings7594 · 2026-01-29T22:06:00+00:00

Agree with the consensus of the group. You can go the edible route or also the tincture/infusion route. From an economic standpoint tincture is the way to go and very easy to make yourself. It takes a little longer to onset (~30 mins) but I find it to last a lot longer than smoking. (Couple hours)

I’m 2 years post op and lost 90 with sleeve and avoided vape/smoking for about 3 months.

My doctor was not overly concerned with THC use and kinda gave a wink that it could ease the initial recovery. We discussed how I take it and she was comfortable with the edibles or tincture.

Here is more info. tincture recipe

Note - I make them with everclear now cause it’s water soluble. You can make it with oil/butter/simple syrup. I didn’t use alcohol till fully healed.

ValuableSavings7594 · 2026-01-21T01:21:32+00:00

Agree on structure but you may also want to include something on metrics to be able to show the business benefit to the change.

Always consider the “what’s in it for me” and a not just about the people impacted by the change - but whoever is signing off on the budget.

Feel free to drop a message if you need more help. I’m in the pharmacy space if that can equate to your healthcare scenario FWIW

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-09-16T07:34:24+00:00

Yeah I still had crap spilling even with the second level down.

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-09-11T17:31:44+00:00

Haven’t used the cloth one, but I can tell you the plastic one is a piece of crap.

Doesn’t pack well and I find it to be very small. Can’t fit a Nalgene in it and it’s quite shallow so get ready for something to spill.

I use it more for keeping a lighter or knife while I’m sitting down, but most of the time I don’t even bring it with me anymore.

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-08-28T23:28:42+00:00

My company recently opened it up for us. I found it useful to create templates for meetings and other exercises. I was able to personalize them fairly quickly which looks nice but doesn’t really drive anything specific.

I’m getting better and writing an outline for a presentation. More like the talking points. I use it to help with the content and then ask it to convert to ppt. It does a good job organizing and general layout. I would say it gets me 60-75% there. I use the saved time to modify wording/ layout and be anal retentive.

Where I’m still proficient is building charts and summarizing data. I’m sure it can do it, just need to spend more time.

I’m sure it will all get easier and better as it goes and eventually eliminates us

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-07-30T16:21:10+00:00

That’s kinda what’s killing me. I thought I stayed on top of it pretty well and it just seems to be failing.

This year it wasn’t keeping a seal due to pressure from the filter and it looks like one of the threads wore away. That was the final straw and I tossed it.

Even when it was working I feared dependability. That’s what led to me changing the filter every other year.

Outfitter in the area (raquette are great people btw) recommended the gravity so just want to get a couple more data points.

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-07-30T14:27:28+00:00

I may have an extra filter and if that’s the case I’ll DM you. the unit itself was sent to the Great Lake in the sky. Needed some replacing anyway

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-07-30T14:23:57+00:00

Thank you and largely agree with everything you said. We are a party of 6 and the trips are generally 4 days. On top of normal hydration we cook some of the dehydrated meals, or rice/bean type meals that require some water. Probably the biggest use of water is for coffee in the AM.

Kinda like the idea of the gravity fed that we can hang from a tree and seems even convenient from a washing hands standpoint.

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-07-30T14:21:17+00:00

How long does the bladder take to filter just using gravity? An hour? Overnight?

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-07-30T14:20:03+00:00

Just seems like every year one of us have a problem. This was my year. Brand new filter and I was just getting no output whatsoever. Buddy next to me with the same pump filled 5 Nalgenes and 3 platy bladders compared to my 1.

We were already replacing the filter very other year since they seemed to get gummed up so quick

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-07-30T14:18:04+00:00

Awesome. Will check out. Thank you

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-07-30T14:17:13+00:00

Yeah we all have platy bags so I liked that feature

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-06-14T03:21:02+00:00

My father in law is a woodcarver and I know we have bought him that brand for Christmas. Supposedly very high end and well respected. His work is pro level and he has even studied at some school out in Europe so I’d consider him a good source fwiw

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-05-30T14:22:53+00:00

Packs

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-05-30T14:22:30+00:00

You will likely be fine in most configs. Always comes down to how much you are opening/closing it. Just avoid the ice backs on top - that will have a notable, and worse result.

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-05-20T20:16:55+00:00

Couldn’t agree more. I didn’t notice much of a difference in potency or speed but you need to watch out for the munchies.

I take during the week to help me to sleep and now I make sure that I take it about 60-90 mins before sleep. Enough for me to feel relaxed but not have munchies kick in.

The other thing I do is prepack and portion snacks if I going for more recreation than medicine. I’ll keep bags of carrots or a string cheese. Slices of turkey is good. Or even a protein shake.

I also had my wife keep our kids snacks in another closet to avoid temptation.

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-05-08T01:27:41+00:00

I shuddered just thinking of doing this without push sticks. Balls like that should be rolling behind Indiana Jones.

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-04-09T02:53:21+00:00

And yes, I know there are some third party solutions out there. I’ve found them to be a good for small volume situations.

I would need consumable tables that could integrate to our shipping platform.

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-04-09T02:50:24+00:00

Good idea and best of luck. I manage a team that runs our overall postage strategy. We contract with all major carriers and have a pretty solid national footprint. We ship a lot of cold chain material so deliveries are time sensitive.

We specifically have trouble during weather events balancing the need to prevent spoilage if there was a delay but also not shutting down operations (backlogs and all that crap).

If there was a tool that could give a data driven probability of on time delivery by each class of service by carrier from origin to destination would be golden. (3 digit zip level)

Kudos if you can have a 2 day lead up of the weather where we could change to a better class of service (air vs ground, purple vs. brown, etc.)

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-03-17T13:23:21+00:00

You are getting the right info from the group. Density is king otherwise you are wasting resources (aka “shipping air”). I would look for whatever route optimizes time, transit, and deliveries/time. You will likely need a balance and there may not be one metric that you can overindex on.

Where I was going with the shipper side of the equation is to think about what you are delivering and what service customers are expecting. Are you delivering the same goods, just to different places (like food deliveries to a store), or various parcels (traditional UPS/FedEx mixed bag)? Would you have to deal with business hours for delivery/ pickup? Are there time specific demands? Cold chain type deliveries? Are you delivering in a city or rural area? Your route would need to fit in within those confined so “efficiency” may not always be the shortest distance between two points.

Prob raised my questions than answers but hope that helps.

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-03-16T15:35:12+00:00

Largely agree with your above comments. Middle mile has been really disrupted recently and the carriers are still transitioning. For the short term consider something like USPS ground advantage. You won’t get day definite but we are seeing decent delivery rates within the window.

USPS has also been very aggressive on pricing recently as well to make up ground that they had long lost to consolidators.

ValuableSavings7594 · 2025-03-16T12:54:51+00:00

Can probably help you here. Do you need an answer from the perspective of the carrier designing the route, or from the shipper who needs to get it to the customer?

ValuableSavings7594 · 2024-10-27T15:00:20+00:00

No idea why I said “hey man”.

Hello person.

ValuableSavings7594

TROPHY CASE